I have anthropomorphized my truck. I named him "Spongebob" because he's "square and cute." Plus his grille looks like a sponge. I'll amend this post with a picture of him once I get a round toit.
I keep a Spongebob Squarepants doll in my console. My truck likes the doll there, so I've kept it there.
Spongebob loves to go on long trips. The summer after I bought him, we took him across the country from my home in New England to the Field of Dreams Movie Site to Yellowstone National Park to Burning Man and back again. Man, did he have fun. His running board on the right side got dented when we (Heidi, my wife, and I) got a little carried away off-roading in Wyoming. He really loved it. He cried, "Again!"
We've driven him across the country and back three times now, and we're doing it again this year (hopefully I'll be able to blog the trip). He's had to do it sometimes while hauling our 29-foot travel trailer. He doesn't like that so much, but he does realize it's his duty as that's primarily what we bought him for. Now the trailer is being kept in Nevada, dedicated for Burning Man, and now he's happier. I'm happier because without the trailer he gives me 17 mpg, but with it it's 4-7 depending on grades.
Last year his fan clutch went out when we crossed from Utah into Nevada. He started complaining while climbing hills, but then stopped complaining on the way down. At high speeds, he was fine, but at low speeds, there just wasn't any air flow. It was also 100 degrees in NW Nevada, which is actually much higher than average in early September. I had to come home a day late because he was sick :(, but eventually we found a place that could diagnose and fix his problem. One day late was actually lucky.
He gets scared when I talk about trading him in, so I've stopped doing that. I don't really want to anyway.
Spongebob is the only vehicle I've owned that I've named, let alone treated like an animal/person. I really can't explain why I've anthropomorphized that truck.
Most of you reading this will think I'm crazy. Some will think I'm just very imaginative. But a very small set of you who have also anthropomorphized a vehicle (probably many boat owners) will truly understand. And by that I mean, we're just...weird.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
I Give Up
Apparently I hear Phil Gramm is back to advising John McCain (see my previous posts). Some right wing sources are saying that he may get a cabinet position.
Why, oh why, do I continue to be surprised at such things?
Why, oh why, do I continue to be surprised at such things?
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Voters are employers, not employees
Exerpt from: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080719/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_gramm
[Phil] Gramm said in a statement late Friday that he is stepping down [as a member of John McCain's campaign] to "end this distraction."
"It is clear to me that Democrats want to attack me rather than debate Senator McCain on important economic issues facing the country," Gramm said.
--------------
In my last post, I say this guy is a piece of shit. Now it's clear he is missing the point of the outrage (and now he's a stupid fucking piece of shit).
He seems to think that people are asking him to retract his opinion, but no one is asking him to do that. Hence his backtrack that he was talking about "our leaders," and hence the flood of conservative "analysts" stating that what he said was true. But no one is asking him to state an opinion he doesn't hold.
Instead of acknowledging that he shouldn't have said what he said, he merely apologizes for the "distraction" to the McCain campaign. My only wonder is why McCain didn't get rid of this asshole sooner.
He seems to think that the controversy is about the veracity of what he stated. But to a certain extent we all know he's somewhat correct. In many ways, we do like to whine.
But whether or not he's correct, or that he's entitled to his opinion, or that he's entitled to state his opinion, is not my issue, and I sense it's not the issue for the American voter as well.
In this Presidential campaign, the top issue on voter's minds is the economy. I personally disagree (I think it should be foreign policy), but that's not my call. It's the voters' call. And most voters have judged that Barack Obama will steward the economy better than John McCain. So it's in the McCain campaign's best interest to convince those voters that the economy is not that bad after all.
The issue, that won't penetrate Phil Gramm's thick head, is that he is not giving a reasoned and cogent explanation of why we don't want to vote for the President based on the current state of the economy. Instead, he talks down to us and insults us by calling us "whiners." He forgets, as many politicians do, that HE WORKS FOR US. We're not "whining." We're simply complaining that Bush and advisors like Phil Gramm are DOING A LOUSY JOB.
What if your manager, or his/her manager, on up to the CEO, what if one of them told you that you weren't working hard enough, or you weren't focused on a particular aspect of your job that they wanted you to focus on. Would you try to convince such person that they are wrong, that you are in fact working hard on the project they are talking about? Would that argument be well thought out, cogent, and respectful of their position? Yes, if you wanted to keep your job. Would you think him/her a whiner? Perhaps. Would you call him/her a whiner? Not if you wanted to keep your job.
And so Phil Gramm doesn't get to keep his job. Not because he was wrong, but because he was disrespectful of our right to decide who to vote for and why. You can convince us that John McCain is a better person for the job. Just like an employer, we expect confidence and a persuasive argument. Just don't call us "whiners" and expect us to think you have respect for what we want when we ask for it. It's clear to me he doesn't give a fuck for the voters. They're just "distractions."
While I may disagree with the final judgement of the voters, it is their right to judge, just like my CEO gets to judge whether I am adding value to his/her company.
And the voters are not as powerful as a typical employer, who can fire at will. So the voter has to be even more careful in granting John McCain or Barack Obama a four-year contract that cannot be bought out.
And it doesn't matter if either of these guys, or the people in their campaign, believe the voters to be "whiners." Just don't call them that.
[Phil] Gramm said in a statement late Friday that he is stepping down [as a member of John McCain's campaign] to "end this distraction."
"It is clear to me that Democrats want to attack me rather than debate Senator McCain on important economic issues facing the country," Gramm said.
--------------
In my last post, I say this guy is a piece of shit. Now it's clear he is missing the point of the outrage (and now he's a stupid fucking piece of shit).
He seems to think that people are asking him to retract his opinion, but no one is asking him to do that. Hence his backtrack that he was talking about "our leaders," and hence the flood of conservative "analysts" stating that what he said was true. But no one is asking him to state an opinion he doesn't hold.
Instead of acknowledging that he shouldn't have said what he said, he merely apologizes for the "distraction" to the McCain campaign. My only wonder is why McCain didn't get rid of this asshole sooner.
He seems to think that the controversy is about the veracity of what he stated. But to a certain extent we all know he's somewhat correct. In many ways, we do like to whine.
But whether or not he's correct, or that he's entitled to his opinion, or that he's entitled to state his opinion, is not my issue, and I sense it's not the issue for the American voter as well.
In this Presidential campaign, the top issue on voter's minds is the economy. I personally disagree (I think it should be foreign policy), but that's not my call. It's the voters' call. And most voters have judged that Barack Obama will steward the economy better than John McCain. So it's in the McCain campaign's best interest to convince those voters that the economy is not that bad after all.
The issue, that won't penetrate Phil Gramm's thick head, is that he is not giving a reasoned and cogent explanation of why we don't want to vote for the President based on the current state of the economy. Instead, he talks down to us and insults us by calling us "whiners." He forgets, as many politicians do, that HE WORKS FOR US. We're not "whining." We're simply complaining that Bush and advisors like Phil Gramm are DOING A LOUSY JOB.
What if your manager, or his/her manager, on up to the CEO, what if one of them told you that you weren't working hard enough, or you weren't focused on a particular aspect of your job that they wanted you to focus on. Would you try to convince such person that they are wrong, that you are in fact working hard on the project they are talking about? Would that argument be well thought out, cogent, and respectful of their position? Yes, if you wanted to keep your job. Would you think him/her a whiner? Perhaps. Would you call him/her a whiner? Not if you wanted to keep your job.
And so Phil Gramm doesn't get to keep his job. Not because he was wrong, but because he was disrespectful of our right to decide who to vote for and why. You can convince us that John McCain is a better person for the job. Just like an employer, we expect confidence and a persuasive argument. Just don't call us "whiners" and expect us to think you have respect for what we want when we ask for it. It's clear to me he doesn't give a fuck for the voters. They're just "distractions."
While I may disagree with the final judgement of the voters, it is their right to judge, just like my CEO gets to judge whether I am adding value to his/her company.
And the voters are not as powerful as a typical employer, who can fire at will. So the voter has to be even more careful in granting John McCain or Barack Obama a four-year contract that cannot be bought out.
And it doesn't matter if either of these guys, or the people in their campaign, believe the voters to be "whiners." Just don't call them that.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
I am not a Weiner!
Phil Gramm is a piece of shit.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/phil-gramm-may-be-gone-bu_b_112781.html
While I don't believe the President has a lot of power over the economy, the President certainly can fuck things up.
The libertarian in me is sickened by politicians like Phil Gramm, because he's completely disingenuous. One side of his mouth claims to be libertarian towards the economy, but the other side meddles with it, passing laws that make it easier for his buddies to make money at the expense of others.
You know who those others are. You and me. The "whiners."
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0708/Phil_Gramm_to_Americans_Suck_it_up.html
(Side note: Notice how he also kicked those with mental illness into the gutter by implying that people who are diagnosed with depression are also whiners? That's a digression though...)
This wouldn't be news, really, except that Phil Gramm was, at the time he made those comments, John McCain's top economic advisor. Only after these comments was his role int the campaign reduced. That's right. He's still advising McCain on economics, but, I suppose we're to believe he's whispering in his ear fewer times each day.
Don't be fooled into believing John McCain is anything close to a libertarian on economics. To simply correlate libertarianism to tax rates is absurd on its face. For politicians to claim they are libertarian just because they want lower tax rates is completely disingenuous, or, worse, reflects a complete lack of understanding of both economics and libertarianism.
The people getting fleeced by politicians that line the pockets of themselves and their buddies, while destroying the economy for the long-term, are not whiners.
And it's an insult to say that the "official" definition of a recession (I won't bore you with it) tells us we're not in one. Quite frankly, I don't care what you call it, but I call it a "train wreck." There, that's better. Is Phil Gramm happy now that I don't call it a "recession"?
How dare such people talk down to the ones who have a constitutional right to accept or reject politicians. We have a right to judge the performance of politicians, or have those politicians forgotten that?
American voters, collectively, are smart. It seems to me that they get it wrong when they're lazy. And that's, I believe, what is annoying Phil Gramm. Us voters are supposed to be lazy, and when we're not, we're whiners.
We are not whiners. We are voters. And, intuitively, we see the train wreck. The train wreck that people like Phil Gramm helped set in motion, to their benefit and to our detriment.
No, we are voters. And we're fighting back.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/phil-gramm-may-be-gone-bu_b_112781.html
While I don't believe the President has a lot of power over the economy, the President certainly can fuck things up.
The libertarian in me is sickened by politicians like Phil Gramm, because he's completely disingenuous. One side of his mouth claims to be libertarian towards the economy, but the other side meddles with it, passing laws that make it easier for his buddies to make money at the expense of others.
You know who those others are. You and me. The "whiners."
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0708/Phil_Gramm_to_Americans_Suck_it_up.html
(Side note: Notice how he also kicked those with mental illness into the gutter by implying that people who are diagnosed with depression are also whiners? That's a digression though...)
This wouldn't be news, really, except that Phil Gramm was, at the time he made those comments, John McCain's top economic advisor. Only after these comments was his role int the campaign reduced. That's right. He's still advising McCain on economics, but, I suppose we're to believe he's whispering in his ear fewer times each day.
Don't be fooled into believing John McCain is anything close to a libertarian on economics. To simply correlate libertarianism to tax rates is absurd on its face. For politicians to claim they are libertarian just because they want lower tax rates is completely disingenuous, or, worse, reflects a complete lack of understanding of both economics and libertarianism.
The people getting fleeced by politicians that line the pockets of themselves and their buddies, while destroying the economy for the long-term, are not whiners.
And it's an insult to say that the "official" definition of a recession (I won't bore you with it) tells us we're not in one. Quite frankly, I don't care what you call it, but I call it a "train wreck." There, that's better. Is Phil Gramm happy now that I don't call it a "recession"?
How dare such people talk down to the ones who have a constitutional right to accept or reject politicians. We have a right to judge the performance of politicians, or have those politicians forgotten that?
American voters, collectively, are smart. It seems to me that they get it wrong when they're lazy. And that's, I believe, what is annoying Phil Gramm. Us voters are supposed to be lazy, and when we're not, we're whiners.
We are not whiners. We are voters. And, intuitively, we see the train wreck. The train wreck that people like Phil Gramm helped set in motion, to their benefit and to our detriment.
No, we are voters. And we're fighting back.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Motel 6 and High-Speed Internet
During this big driving trip I'm planning, I want to keep up a daily blog with pictures. This requires high-speed Internet. When I'm at Burning Man, I'm pretty sure I won't have that, but I can write the blogs there, and them post them afterwards.
Anyway, one of the problems I have is that planning a five-week trip is very time-consuming. Lately I've used up a lot of time looking for motels in popular areas that have rooms available and high-speed Internet. Most of the places, I'm simply finding Motel 6's along the way. I'm not looking for reservations. Instead, if there aren't rooms available, I'll either drive to the next Motel 6, or deal with what's available. I want to have high-speed Internet in order to keep up the blog every day, but that's not always available.
For instance, there's no Motel 6 in Sedona, and there's none at Bryce Canyon either. The last time I was at Bryce Canyon was 10 years ago. There I was able to get reservations at Ruby's Inn (at exactly the same week of the year), the Best Western, which is the only hotel actually inside the park. This time, it was booked, and to get high-speed internet access, I had to book a place much further away.
Last time I was at Bryce, Heidi (my wife) and I ran into a lot of Germans. And when we got back to the hotel, Baywatch was on the T.V. I wonder if I'll see a lot of Germans this time.
Anyway, the point is this is further proof that Germans love David Hasselhoff.
Anyway, one of the problems I have is that planning a five-week trip is very time-consuming. Lately I've used up a lot of time looking for motels in popular areas that have rooms available and high-speed Internet. Most of the places, I'm simply finding Motel 6's along the way. I'm not looking for reservations. Instead, if there aren't rooms available, I'll either drive to the next Motel 6, or deal with what's available. I want to have high-speed Internet in order to keep up the blog every day, but that's not always available.
For instance, there's no Motel 6 in Sedona, and there's none at Bryce Canyon either. The last time I was at Bryce Canyon was 10 years ago. There I was able to get reservations at Ruby's Inn (at exactly the same week of the year), the Best Western, which is the only hotel actually inside the park. This time, it was booked, and to get high-speed internet access, I had to book a place much further away.
Last time I was at Bryce, Heidi (my wife) and I ran into a lot of Germans. And when we got back to the hotel, Baywatch was on the T.V. I wonder if I'll see a lot of Germans this time.
Anyway, the point is this is further proof that Germans love David Hasselhoff.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
On Writing
You would think that writing a novel while working full time as a software engineer would be difficult. At least, I hope you think that, because, for me, it is very difficult.
I want to write a certain amount each day (Stephen King says 2,000 words), but I find that plotting and character development take up a lot of time--time I'd have plenty of if I wasn't working at a job.
I've discovered this leads to large periods in which I do no writing, which I now realize is derived from an insidious form of writer's block. Although I have lots of ideas to write, I find I'm not writing any of them. At first I was baffled by this, but now I know that I'm not writing them because I don't like any of the ideas I have at the time.
I'm not fully blocked. I have ideas that I can write about. But something below my conscious level, my muse, doesn't like it and prevents me from writing. Again, Stephen King thinks that writing junk every day is fine, that the important part is to get in the habit of writing every day. But not me. Not my muse.
And I think it all goes back to my limited time. If I'm not writing something good, then why should I spend the time writing junk? I need that time for other things I'm doing in my life.
It's easy to come up with ideas. Ideas are in the ether, and they're all over the place. But good ideas...
I've titled this post On Writing because I found a lot of inspiration in Stephen King's book of that title. It is invaluable, and I suggest every writer, aspiring or best-selling, read it.
And in this post I wanted to contrast my experience with his. I think it works best to write 2,000 words every day when you are writing a "what if?" book--the kind he writes. Man, is he good at it. I think it's much easier for ideas to flow in a linear fashion.
But for me I need to spend a lot of time developing my ideas, making sure they're impactful and dramatic enough for a reader to be interested, and making sure the entire work is self-consistent.
Perhaps it's because I am writing a non-linear novel. It has time-travel in it. I know, it's done all the time, but there's a reason it's done all the time.
Perhaps it's because I'm just not as good at coming up with good ideas as I write on the fly. Stephen King always says he has no idea where his ideas come from. I say, "my muse" but that's equivalent to "no idea" to most people.
Of course, I think it's both.
Why did I choose to write a novel with time-travel as my first novel?
I want to write a certain amount each day (Stephen King says 2,000 words), but I find that plotting and character development take up a lot of time--time I'd have plenty of if I wasn't working at a job.
I've discovered this leads to large periods in which I do no writing, which I now realize is derived from an insidious form of writer's block. Although I have lots of ideas to write, I find I'm not writing any of them. At first I was baffled by this, but now I know that I'm not writing them because I don't like any of the ideas I have at the time.
I'm not fully blocked. I have ideas that I can write about. But something below my conscious level, my muse, doesn't like it and prevents me from writing. Again, Stephen King thinks that writing junk every day is fine, that the important part is to get in the habit of writing every day. But not me. Not my muse.
And I think it all goes back to my limited time. If I'm not writing something good, then why should I spend the time writing junk? I need that time for other things I'm doing in my life.
It's easy to come up with ideas. Ideas are in the ether, and they're all over the place. But good ideas...
I've titled this post On Writing because I found a lot of inspiration in Stephen King's book of that title. It is invaluable, and I suggest every writer, aspiring or best-selling, read it.
And in this post I wanted to contrast my experience with his. I think it works best to write 2,000 words every day when you are writing a "what if?" book--the kind he writes. Man, is he good at it. I think it's much easier for ideas to flow in a linear fashion.
But for me I need to spend a lot of time developing my ideas, making sure they're impactful and dramatic enough for a reader to be interested, and making sure the entire work is self-consistent.
Perhaps it's because I am writing a non-linear novel. It has time-travel in it. I know, it's done all the time, but there's a reason it's done all the time.
Perhaps it's because I'm just not as good at coming up with good ideas as I write on the fly. Stephen King always says he has no idea where his ideas come from. I say, "my muse" but that's equivalent to "no idea" to most people.
Of course, I think it's both.
Why did I choose to write a novel with time-travel as my first novel?
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